You Only Live Twice
by Evelyna1
Summary: Those wounds were fatal. Really, they were. Especially without medical attention for at least sixteen hours. Post To Hell and Back.


_Death may be the greatest of all human blessings. _

_~Socrates_

Hotch woke up with a gasp. At first he thought that it had been a nightmare, but the first glance around himself disabused him of that notion.

He was not on his bed but on the floor of his living room, and the carpet he was lying on was stained with blood. An awful lot of blood, in fact, an amount of blood that made a death happening there very likely. He looked down upon himself. He didn't feel injured. Was he?

He was still wearing his suit. Yes, of course, he remembered that.

George Foyet – the reaper – had shot the wall right beside his head.

A glance showed him that the hole from the bullet was exactly where he expected it to be.

His suit jacket was open and his shirt was ripped in places and stained red.

That didn't make sense.

Almost without thinking about it he put hand into his pocket and retrieved his cell phone, immediately calling Garcia.

"You have reached the goddess of all knowledge, what is your desire?" she chirped cheerfully.

"Garcia."

"Sir, are you alright? We couldn't reach you all day. What happened?"

"Garcia. I need you to tell me something. Something about yourself. Something that I can verify later, something that I don't know yet."

"Sir?" Her voice was questioning.

"Garcia." Her name had somehow become a lifeline. "I can't tell if I'm awake. I honestly don't know."

"You can't tell-"

"Garcia!"

"A...alright. but you're explaining this to me!"

"I will. But please-"

"Okay. Okay. Uhm. I know. When I was nine, I fell. Down the stairs. I broke my left forearm in two places. The doctor thought I was being abused. Is that okay?"

"Thank you. I'll ask you about it tomorrow or... whenever."

"Hotch. What's going on? Why don't you know ... this is so unlike you!"

"I remember George Foyet killing me."

"What?" Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

"I thought it was a nightmare, but my living room looks like a crime scene. And so do I."

"Looks like a crime scene how?" Careful now. What she had to think of him. He was quite aware that he sounded crazy.

"There's a bullet hole in the wall. The carpet is stained with blood. Soaked, actually. So is my shirt. It's ripped in places. I haven't counted yet, but at least four of those rips correspond to stab wounds I remember receiving. But I don't feel a scratch. I don't feel wounded at all. I haven't undressed yet. The only thing I can think of is to look for needle pricks or something. I …I can't find an explanation for this and frankly, I really hope that when I ask you tomorrow you will say that you don't remember having this conversation."

"You just… No, no, you're awake. You just got killed and woke up?"

"If I'm actually awake – then yes, that might be what happened. But I would not rule out drugs, brain washing or frankly, anything else. The fact is – I don't know if I should even… well, if I should get into the shower and get dressed for the day and you know… clean up my living room – or wait for a crime scene unit."

"Okay. We'll… we'll think of something. I just… Let me take a look around."

"Do you really think you'll find something about, what, spontaneous resurrections?"

-

"Won't know until I try, sir!"

Well, he needed cheering up, so she would just run her mouth.

"Hotch, you're a great man, but I refuse to believe you're unique, because that would actually be really sad if there weren't more of you around – "

Was she even making sense?

" - and anyway, I refuse to believe that this never happened to anyone, ever, so it happened to someone and if it happened I can find it, you know I can. Wait, what…"

Did someone actually have the temerity to try and find her while she was with her babies and quite capable of protecting them, thank you very much!?

"What's happening?"

And wasn't that just like Hotch? The moment she expressed uncertainty, he was cool, calm and collected and asking for updates.

"Someone is trying to trace my search. Oh don't you dare – "

"Trying to find you or to attack?"

"Find, for now, but I know what happens if a search is so aggressive because my searches are and we find and arrest people and we're really serious about it."

"Somebody knows something and tries to keep it secret. Can you find them?"

"You bet you currently slightly stained tie I can."

Oops, too much? That had been inappropriate. Had she just done something horrible to his psyche?

"…soaked, too, actually."

Well, that sounded wry enough. He was saving his breakdown for later.

Now, who the hell was 'rog5000'?

_The report of my death was an exaggeration. _

_~Mark Twain_


End file.
